New research led by scientists at the Australian National University’s Research School of Earth suggests that humans first started to significantly change the climate in the 1830s, near the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. The findings have been published in the journal Nature, and “were based on natural records of climate variation in the world’s oceans and continents, including those found in corals, ice cores, tree rings and the changing chemistry of stalagmites in caves.”

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People have been contributing to global warming since the mid-nineteenth century, decades before scientists previously estimated, according to new research published in the journal Nature.

The study questions the perception of climate change as primarily a 20th century phenomenon and provides new evidence of how quickly the Earth’s atmosphere responds to increased levels of greenhouse gas emissions. Even relatively low levels of greenhouse gas emissions in the first decades of the Industrial Revolution contributed to a temperature increase, according to the research.

Our favorite science guy has an interview (and video) in Quartz where he explains how Louisiana flooding is due to climate change:
“As the ocean gets warmer, which it is getting, it expands,” Nye explained. “Molecules spread apart, and then as the sea surface is warmer, more water evaporates, and so it’s very reasonable that these storms are connected to these big effects.”
The article also notes that a National Academy of Sciences issued a report with the same findings

“The Science Guy,” the science educator best known for his beloved 1990s educational videos, appeared on CNN yesterday (Aug. 23) to discuss the recent flooding in Louisiana that killed 13 people, damaged 60,000 homes, and forced the evacuation of thousands of others. Nye was clear about what’s to blame for the disaster.

“This is the result of climate change,” he said. “It’s only going to get worse.”

“As the ocean gets warmer, which it is getting, it expands,” Nye explained. “Molecules spread apart, and then as the sea surface is warmer, more water evaporates, and so it’s very reasonable that these storms are connected to these big effects.”

Scientists from around the world have concurred with Nye that this is exactly what the effects of climate change look like, and that disasters like the Louisiana floods are going to happen more and more. According to a National Academy of Sciences report published earlier this year, extreme flooding can be traced directly to human-induced global warming. As the atmosphere warms, it retains more moisture, leading to bouts of sustained, heavy precipitation that can cause floods.

Recent floods over the past year in Maryland, Texas, West Virginia, South Carolina, and Oklahoma have killed dozens and displaced thousands more

Donald Trump is poised to eliminate all climate change research conducted by NASA as part of a crackdown on “politicized science,” his senior adviser on issues relating to the space agency has said. Nasa’s Earth science division is set to be stripped of funding in favor of exploration of deep space, with the president-elect having set a goal during the campaign to explore the entire solar system by the end of the century. This would mean the elimination of NASA’s world-renowned research into temperature, ice, clouds and other climate phenomena.